SOUTH East farmer Simon Ballinger says mice numbers are not at plague proportions in his farming district, but he is still taking a cautious approach to the pest.
Mr Ballinger, Ballinger Brothers, Wolseley, has baited all of the canola he has sown this year, and has also baited paddocks where stubble has been retained, as well as along fencelines.
“In our area, mice numbers are as high as I’ve seen in a long time,” he said.
“They aren’t horrific at this stage, but there’s certainly plenty of them out there.
“Numbers aren’t at huge levels at the moment, but they have the potential to be. So, there’s a lot of bait spreading going on in the area, just to try and keep them down as much as possible.”
Mr Ballinger said it had been a challenge to secure mice bait, with so many farmers across the country keen to lock in supplies due to high pest numbers.
“Luckily, I’ve I’ve managed to secure what I need at the moment,” he said.
He had been able to do some of his baiting and seeding in the one pass. When sowing crops other than canola, Mr Ballinger has been able to put out mice bait through his small seeds box, at the same time as seeding.
Mr Ballinger said he had also burnt more paddocks this year than he usually would for a number of reasons.
“I’ve been burning to try and keep the mice and snail numbers down, and to help get through the residues,” he said.
Mr Ballinger said he started to notice growing numbers of mice when he started seeding in early May.
He said it had been a fairly good start to the 2017 season with timely recent falls.
“I can’t complain about the season so far,” he said.
“It was looking a bit dry, but then 20 millimetres fell in the past week. It fell at the right time.”
Mr Ballinger said the end was in sight for seeding, and he was sowing wheat, barley, canola, beans and lentils this season.